Stonehenge voice over v/o two voices other audio fx/music tba gets caught up in the excitement, is curious and questioning, knows a bit but not much and occasionally gets reined in. teacher/advisor has the knowledge and confidence corralling Voice 1 towards a conclusion which she is also excited by Both are proud of the location and want to introduce it and encourage the visitor to question, explore and discover more for themselves SECTION 1 approx 67 Imagine a time before texting and mobile phones Before email and the internet Before books..before writing...think listen look. Voice 2 Stonehenge is as old and as important in the story of people on this planet as the Pyramids in Egypt and temples in Mexico What was it for? Who built it? How? Why?.. Let s start with what we know: some things have not changed much in thousands of years. the sun rises and sets in more or less the same place the stars in the night and the shapes of the land look much the same to us as they did to people long ago But so much has changed.. No one wrote down who built Stonehenge or how.it comes from a time long before people kept written records.. So the only way forward is to combine hard facts with imagination. What a place what was it for.why?
context SECTION 2 approx 46 Voice2: Archaeologists know that Stonehenge was built in stages. It is part of a much bigger site[seg1] linked together by the River Avon there are burial mounds and other prehistoric monuments nearby The Cursus and The Avenue, Woodhenge and Durrington Walls, Voice 1 But if Stonehenge was built before anything got written down...how do they know this, what s the evidence? We can still see the great stones, banks and ditches but archaeologists have found lots more evidence: traces of buildings, tools and weapons animal remains human bones.. so what does all this tell us?
HOW & WHEN SECTION 3 approx 32 Voice2: back to what we know. Stonehenge began life five thousand years ago as a circular chalk bank and ditch. We call that a henge. It would have stood out gleaming white across the landscape today there s just a soft shape in the grass. Within the bank was a circle of wooden posts or stones [SEG2] all that remains are the marks of the deep holes where they stood. They found burned human bones in those holes. What happened here? Pause. SECTION 4 approx 36
Voice2 Five hundred years later, construction work began again.,,,, Huge stones, called sarsens, were stood up like five giant doorways in a horseshoe shape. Around these were built a circle of sarsen stones, holding up smaller stones to make a ring high above the ground... Finally the smaller bluestones arrived. They were arranged to create another circle and horseshoe shape inside the massive sarsen stones SECTION 5 approx 88
Voice1: How did they get there? Where did they come from? How did they move them? Archaeologists believe that the sarsen stones came from the Marlborough Downs, about 19 miles away. They think the stones were dragged on wooden sledges. It would have taken a team of about 200 people at least 12 days to shift one stone. The Bluestones came from even further away, about 150 miles,from South Wales.. That s a really long way.those are really heavy stones how on earth did they do it? Maybe the bluestones came from Wales overland, perhaps they used the sea and the rivers. We don t know for certain Voice1: They didn t have trucks or cranes or diggers, they didn t even have horses. How did they get those stones upright and linked up? What a feat of engineering Their only tools were made from wood, stone and bone. Archaeologists think that the stones were slid into the hole and rested at an angle and then pulled into place They might have used plants to make the rope!. then the stones that went on top could have been raised up on a platform of wood. Serious organization and expert knowledge was needed to get the stones up and in the right place Voice1: Who were the people who built and used Stonehenge? How did they live?
Who SECTION 6 approx 44 Voice2: Four and a half thousand years ago people in the area lived in scattered communities. They were farmers, they lived in houses and grew crops. As the seasons changed they would have moved with their herds of pigs and cows. We know they used clay pots for cooking and storing food, and made tools like axes and knives from a hard stone called flint.. Their clothes would have been made from leather, fur and plants, and possibly early cloth. There is evidence from Durrington Walls that people gathered there for great feasts of beef and pork, perhaps to celebrate special events.
Why SECTION 7 approx 102 So why was Stonehenge built, and why did people gather there? Was it to see a sunrise, the moon,or something else in the sky through the shapes in the stones? There are many ideas. For the first 500 years until at least the first stone arrived,stonehenge was a place where people buried their dead. Perhaps the story was about life and death, a journey down the river from Durrington, where people feasted and celebrated. to Stonehenge where they joined their ancestors Maybe the secret of Stonehenge is in the bluestones. They must have been really important to have moved them all the way from Wales.. Perhaps the stones had healing powers The cycle of the seasons would have been very important. We know that the stones were arranged to frame the sun at special days in the year: for the midsummer sunrise and the midwinter sunset. In the short cold days of winter food supplies grew low. How could people be certain that light and warmth would return? Is this why Stonehenge was important?..to mark not the longest day but the shortest.. when the year turned from dark to light and there was hope for new life
Conclusion SECTION 8 approx 55 Archaeologists have worked out a lot about how, when and why those ancient stone engineers built Stonehenge. But there is still much we don t know and the detective work continues. What do you think? Why do you think Stonehenge was built? What does it mean to you? As you go out into the landscape it may be hard to see more than big old stones. But, stop, for just a moment. and try to imagine what it was once like,long ago. Voice1: There were people here, not so different from you. Imagine yourself here all those years ago
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